Young people from a County Down special school are hoping of making magical memories in Disneyland Paris next year – with a fundraising drive launched to turn that dream into reality.
Donard School is celebrating 60 years at the heart of the local community and is endeavouring to create a “once-in-a-lifetime” adventure for its pupils as part of those big birthday celebrations.
Around 130 pupils attend Donard day and daily, from age four up to 19.
Now a fundraising drive has been launched to ensure that some of those, in the 14 to 19 age group, will be able to fly to France for fun, fun, fun!
And this is no half-hearted Mickey Mouse effort when it comes to getting them there, with several initiatives lined up to push them over their £50,000 target.
Helen Faulkner – whose eight-year-old son, Jack, attends the school – is the chair of the Donard School PTA which is actively involved.
She told Armagh I how the idea came about: “Every eight to nine years on a cycle, the school try and do something for the kids, that maybe they couldn’t do normally. I know for myself, my Jack, we can’t take him anywhere.
“So the staff – we have a doctor and a nurse, an OT – they all go with them on this trip.
“Donard turned 60 years this year so they’ve been doing different little celebrations within the school. They had a carnival day. They’ve done lots of artwork to do with Donard over the years. They’ve had little celebrations throughout the year.
“The big thing then is that any child over 14 has the opportunity to sign up and go to Disney next May. That’s our plan, so we’re just trying to do lots of different fundraising to get them there, because ideally, we’d really love staff and kids to pay very little towards it if we can.”
The hard-working PTA, among other things, stage fundraising events to, as Helen puts it, “give back to the kids”.
“Grants have been cut across the board,” she explained. “ This year we’ve done a few fundraising things and we’ve given back to the school for music therapy and equine therapy. Some of the school go to a donkey sanctuary and they do things with them. We do different events for the school. We donated the pumpkins so they did the pumpkin patch in school – again different things that the children, maybe in their normal day-to-day, can’t go to like your typical child could.
“They mightn’t be able to avail of going to a farm or a pumpkin patch or a Christmas event. At our Christmas fair, we did a quiet Santa, so every kid could get to do that, so it’s different things that we try and give back to the school.
“Obviously, some of our events are fundraising, but then we give back.
“For the 60 years, we, as a PTA, gave money to each class to give the children, if suitable, the chance to all get a school trip, because again, not everyone is able to do that. Some classes were able to and then the leftover money went to the school carnival day in June, so again, every child got something out of it.”
The big focus now is on Paris 2027, with 29 young people, along with 22 staff, already signed up.
“It’s costing approximately £1,000 per person, so our target is £50,000 across all of the fundraising,” added Helen. “ We don’t know if we’ll get there. The school have applied for different funds and parents are willing to pay something. They pay their deposit and ideally we want to fundraise so we can pay the rest and, in an ideal world, if we make target, we would be giving money back to the parents who paid the deposits. That would be in an ideal world but we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Donard – more than a school, a family, a real community – is rallying around and pulling out all the stops to bring in as much money as possible.
As Helen said: “Different people are doing different things. There’s a lovely little girl who is actually going to Disney. She’s called Laura and she is turning 18. As Donard PTA, we are a registered charity. She’s actually holding her party in the local golf club here in July and she’s chosen Donard. Instead of people giving her presents, she’d like people to donate to the Disney Fund.
“There’s another lady’s friend who’s walking the Camino in July and she’s chosen Donard as her charity, and there’s other different little events happening too to try and fundraise.”
Helen’s husband Jonny, together with his friend, Ryan O’Neill – whose 10-year-old daughter, Rianne, is also a pupil of Donard School – are playing their part too.
And it will be a real leap of faith which will see them pushing themselves out of their comfort zone when they ‘do their bit’ to swell the coffers of the Disney Fund.
“They’re doing the Antrim Coast half marathon in August; they’ve never ran before!” explained Helen. “They started doing ‘couch to 5K’. A lot of things like coffee mornings and wellness mornings that we would run, we would have found a lot of women, mums, attended, and dads were sort of left out.
“My husband was just thinking we need to do more for the dads, so he talked to this other dad and that’s why they started to run and trained together. Separate from Donard, he has a little WhatsApp group that have about nine dads in it, whose children attend different schools across the area, like Ceara, just so dads have somewhere to talk as well.
“Whenever Disney come up, Ryan and Johnny just thought this would be a nice goal to achieve something, something to work towards. That’s why their training has been upped a wee bit to try and run this half marathon.”
A GoFundMe page was only started on Monday and already over £3,000 has been donated.
And then there’s the other ongoing efforts and direct donations to the school – coupled with celebrations and events yet to come – to factor into the equation.
The support has been brilliant – “just super”, as Helen says – and all have firmly fixed their eyes on the prize!
For all at Donard know that when the young people leave the school on the Castlewellan Road next May it will have been well and truly worth it.
“It is a once in a lifetime,” said Helen. “There’s some kids there that have never been on holiday, even within Ireland, never mind going on a plane. They will have people there that know their needs, day in and day out, in school. They have medical staff that are able to go with them, the doctor, the nurse, the OTs, and families wouldn’t be able to just do that.
“It’s an experience that they’ll probably never get again, a holiday itself, and then to get somewhere like that, to Disneyland, and experience it… It’s just going to be absolutely magical for them. That’s really, really what it is – once in a lifetime!”
If you would like to support the efforts, you can make a donation here.
